The University of Wolverhampton’s Print Services Unit (PSU) has been established for many years to meet the typesetting, printing, finishing and photocopying needs of the various schools and departments.
A team of 14 dedicated staff support over 110 machines over four sites, and their services are available to 23,000 students, 2,300 administration and academic staff as well as external users.

The PSU is a commercial operation, aiming to provide an efficient and cost-effective solution with consistently high standards of service and customer care. As such, the PSU constantly seeks to ensure that it makes the best hardware and software choices to remain competitive. For the past 12 years, the PSU has worked with one of Europe’s leading digital print equipment and services specialists, Infotec (formerly Danka), and in that time Infotec has supported the PSU’s efforts to meet ever-increasing and changing student and staff requirements.

The University recently decided to diversify both its print hardware and software. Stuart Mellor, Head of the Print Services Unit at the University of Wolverhampton, outlines why:
“Over the last three years, we have seen a 300% increase in colour printing volumes at the University, whilst the proportion of black and white production has noticeably decreased. This is undoubtedly due to the falling cost of colour printing, making it a more viable choice for users than in the past. Also, printing from the Internet frequently drives colour volumes.
“That said, overall volumes of print production have risen massively over the last few years. This poses a challenge in itself – cost needs to be balanced with convenience. A central print facility is the obvious answer to process the more substantial jobs, as long as it is kitted out with high-end equipment with suitable finishing options, so students can bind their dissertations, for instance. But it is not always the answer to channel all output centrally; there will always remain the need for local, departmental printing too.
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Furthermore, we faced the challenge of having to manage imaging services across four campuses, with the increasing trend towards remote submission of print jobs. Encouraging users to submit work to us centrally would be key to channeling jobs through lower-cost, more efficient equipment instead of highcost, local desktop devices.”

Digimaster E-125 – as well as a selection of smaller, high-volume devices, all of which could be used to process larger jobs centrally. Stuart’s team adopted the print management and workflow software offered by Infotec – Infostream – which simplifies the submission of print jobs from remote sites. The Infostream interface is used by staff to submit their requests electonically,saving time and money compared to physically taking their files to the print room.
Stuart adds, “Also, the software automatically allocates the job to their cost centre, eliminating the need for the long-winded administrative process that previously blighted print job requests. From our point of view, it enables simple job scheduling and management, as we can route each job to the most appropriate machine. We have been very impressed with its speed and user-friendliness.”
There are currently 400 Infostream users, and this semester alone Stuart has received 5000 print jobs through the software, with significantly fewer jobs being printed on expensive desktop printers.

Stuart is confident that his new hardware and software base will now see him successfully accommodate future changes. For example, he envisages that Infostream will be integrated into the University’s smartcard/ID card system that staff and students currently use to pay for printing services. This will futher increase the efficiency and smoothness of the imaging operation. Also, a new administration block is being built to consolidate six University departments into one main building. The PSU will be in charge of defining the imaging equipment strategy for this, and Stuart plans to trial a new strategy in the building - eliminating departmental desk-top laser printers, replacing them with seven Multi-Functional Printers (MFPs) that will serve the colour and black and white imaging needs of 320 staff. Infostream will be available for more substancial print runs to be re-routed to PSU.
Stuart sees this trial as a step nearer to the introduction of a controlled print policy, and once we see the results, I expect this to become a blueprint for the University’s future set-up.

He concludes, “Certainly, we have a solid, long-standing relationship with Infotec and have been impressed by their exceptional customer care and service. We have received a consistently high quality account management, and we feel that their wide product portfolio has helped us maximise the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of our operation.”